A 27-year-old Bronx parolee who was fatally stabbed months after his release from prison feared he would be killed, the victim’s devastated mother told the Daily News.
Tyquise Bell and his mother Tesha Bell, 45, exchanged goodbyes early Thursday morning around 8 a.m. as Tesha was leaving for work, reminding Tyquise to see his parole officer, the mother recalled.
“He’s like, ‘Be safe.’ I’m like, ‘Don’t forget to go see your parole officer.’ He’s like, ‘I’m not, Mom,’” Tesha Bell said.
Hours later, Tyquise was returning home after seeing his parole officer, when he was stabbed in the chest steps away from his Bronx home, at the corner of E. 138th St. and Cypress Ave. in Mott Haven around 4 p.m., after a man dressed in black began arguing with him outside a corner deli, cops said.
Responding officers found Bell bleeding from the chest. EMS rushed him to Lincoln Hospital, where he died.
“I don’t know how it occurred but people in the streets is just — this world is just cruel,” the mother said.
Tyquise’s attacker took off running north on Cypress Ave. and has still yet to be caught by police.
“I am empty. That was my only son. I’m empty,” Tesha Bell said. “I can’t explain. I think it’s not real.”
Tyquise served a three-year prison stint, recently getting out on April 17 after having pleaded guilty to weapons possession charges. He was released from Green Haven Correctional Facility in Stormville, N.Y., according to court records. He was on parole until 2027.
“It’s a cell with nothing but a toilet and no window and you go outside for like an hour, so that’s what made him trigger and I guess he was smoking that K2 in there. That’s what made him more triggered,” Tesha said. “He used to tell me, ‘Mom,’ he’s like, ‘Mom, somebody’s after me. I’m paranoid they’re gonna kill me.’ And I’m thinking, it’s hallucinations from the drug. He’s withdrawing from it.”
The family has launched a GoFundMe to cover funeral expenses.
Tyquise, who is the father of a 8-year-old boy, was arrested in April 2022, when he was hit with charges of robbery and criminal possession of a weapon after he held up a smoke shop on E. 138th St. in the Bronx.
Tyquise told the clerk, “Put your hands up. I want everything. I’m about to shoot,” while flashing a gun and a knife tucked into his waistband, according to the criminal complaint in that case. He was later arrested on April 28.
According to records, he was also arrested on March 30 of the same year on a criminal possession of a weapon charge.
Tyquise’s mother believed that he started to spiral downward after the deaths of his grandfather in 2019 and both his grandmother and aunt in 2021, all from heart attacks.
“He was a good kid,” his mom said. “He used to play ball. He went to high school. He did all that. But in 2019 my father died, and then after that, his best friend got killed, and then my mother died and then my sister died, so that’s when he just started going insane. And then he went to jail,” she recounted. “I think it made him angry because he couldn’t do anything to stop the problem.”
The death of his best friend, Dre, who was shot in the back and killed near Jackson Ave., hit Tyquise hard, making him fear he was going to be killed, too.
“He was having hallucinations. It was in his mind because his friend got killed,” Tesha Bell said. “He told me when he was locked up, he was like, ‘Ma, I’m afraid to come home because I don’t want to die like Dre,’” she said. “Dre was like a brother to him.”
After his release from prison, Tyquise aimed to get his life back on track, staying out of trouble and picking up his old hobbies, such as playing video games and basketball. His mother, though, noticed that he started to be more of a homebody, staying in his room, “like he was in jail,” she said.
“He was just doing his programs,” she said. “Going to his parole officer, coming back home and staying home. He was like, ‘Oh, Mom, I’m gonna stay in my room.’ He haven’t been smoking the K2 since he came out.”
Originally Published: September 21, 2025 at 6:00 AM EDT
